


Four Birthdays

by autoeuphoric (FreezingRayne)



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: M/M, but so are you, happy birthday KJ, many embarrassing returns, yeah i know the summary is cheesy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 21:18:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2165547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezingRayne/pseuds/autoeuphoric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rice balls, tattoos, liquor, and love. Four birthdays from four different stages of Koujaku's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Birthdays

**Author's Note:**

> I heard it was a certain sexy dork's special day.

Koujaku’s first birthday on Midorijima he barely knows anyone.

His mother works nights so she’s been asleep since early morning. Koujaku is sitting on the porch watching the traffic in the street, bicycles, trucks, the occasional passenger car kicking out hot clouds of exhaust.

 _It’s my birthday,_ Koujaku thinks earnestly, as if he can project the thought loud enough for someone to hear. He doesn’t expect fancy gifts—no one here has the money for that—but he can’t help the loneliness trickling out from the shady spaces between buildings, thickening as the sun sinks lower in the sky.

“Koujaku!”

A flash of blue at the end of the alleyway and a shrill, childlike shout. As if Aoba doesn’t attract enough attention with that crazy hair, he’s always yelling and knocking things over, feet too big for his body like an oversized puppy’s.

Loneliness is immediately swallowed up by a rush of exasperated affection. “Aoba, be careful!”

Aoba trips on an uneven brick in the sidewalk, stumbling on short legs up to the porch. He’s out of breath and his hair is a tangled mess. Koujaku really wants to take a comb to it.

“What’s the rush?”

“Granny said it’s your birthday,” Aoba says, as if that explains everything.

Trust Tae-san to know things no one else does. “Well, yeah, but it lasts the whole day, you know.”

Aoba thrusts a lumpy package at him, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a bow.            

“What’s—.” The onigiri is soft and still faintly warm, two plump, perfectly shaped rice balls. “Did you make these?”

Aoba nods enthusiastically.

Koujaku is filled with a giddy elation, so much that he can’t help teasing, “Really? All by yourself?”

Color blooms on Aoba’s cheeks. “Granny helped. A little.”

They share the rice balls, sitting on Koujaku’s porch as the light goes golden and slanted. They taste as good as they smell, the plum so fresh and just sweet enough. Aoba gets rice all over his face. He really is such a little disaster.

“These are delicious,” Koujaku says, and Aoba flushes again, this time with pride. “But not exactly a whole meal.” He wonders if he has enough money to buy them noodles. Maybe they could share a bowl.

“There’s more.”

Koujaku looks down at Aoba. “Hmm? There is?”

“Yeah! But Granny says you can only have them if you come for dinner. She says she isn’t gonna let you just sit around like a lump and have things brought to you, even on your birthday.”

“Tae-san…said that?”

“Yeah. Or something. She was cooking _a lot._ ”

Again, Koujaku feels a tight ache in the center of his chest, but this one is warm and trembling, a sparrow beating tiny wings against his ribs. He stands up and offers a hand for Aoba’s sticky fingers. “Let’s not keep her waiting, then.”

           

Koujaku’s fifteenth birthday is grey and storm-swept, unusually chilly for August. He sits just inside the door and watches the wind ripple the koi pond, the maple leaves trembling under the rain’s assault. His father’s house is too far away from the road to hear traffic, but if he concentrates he can almost smell the smog of the Old District, taste the pickled plum on the back of his tongue.

A screen slides open and one of the maids says, “Koujaku-san, your father is waiting for you in the dining room.”

Koujaku stands, legs tingling after hours spent in the same position. “Thank you,” he says.

The dining room is more crowded than usual, but it’s still a small gathering. His father sits at the head of the table, his second-in-command on his left, Koujaku’s stepmother on the right. Koujaku seats himself at the foot of the table, in between two women he has never met before. They are both in bastardized traditional dress—kimonos cut too low, slit high up the sides, wrapped incorrectly. They smile at Koujaku, one of them reaching over to pour him sake, her breast brushing his arm.            

Koujaku’s mother is not here. The only other place is taken up by a man in a dark blue kimono, embroidered with a tightly coiled dragon. He is so pale he glows in the candle light, his eyebrows almost perfectly diagonal, giving his features a sinister twist, even when he smiles.

“You must be Koujaku-san,” he says, before anyone can introduce him. “Fifteen today?”

“Yeah…” Koujaku says slowly.

The man smiles again. If he finds it odd that Koujaku’s father has bought him two prostitutes on his birthday, he gives no sign. “A good age,” he says. “When we’re children, the marks the world leaves simply wash away. I think, Koujaku-san, that in the next year many things will start to become more assured, more…permanent.”

 

It’s possibly the biggest birthday party Koujaku’s ever had, and definitely the loudest. Mizuki had rented out the whole bar—not the Black Needle, a bar down the street. He knows how Koujaku feels about being in the tattoo parlor, even if he doesn’t know why.

He’s met only half the guys here, and hardly any of the women. Mizuki’s girlfriend had invited a lot of her friends, and they’re cute and lovely and fun, but Koujaku always feels strained on his birthdays, stretched in too many different directions, and it’s hard to remain consistently charming.

And then there’s Aoba, sitting with Mizuki and drinking that watery foreign beer he likes, listening to Kou tell a story about the time he’d mistaken a rabid dog for an allmate.

_Aoba._

When he’d brought the point of the sword to his own stomach, drawn in what he’d thought would be his last breath, it had been the memory of that familiar flash of blue that made him hesitate.

Aoba is different now, and it’s not just that he’s older. He’s darkened, splintered off round the edges. But that’s alright, because Koujaku’s darkened too. In more ways than one. The thoughts that kept him alive that night had been childish and nostalgic—baby tears and skinned knees and fresh onigiri _._ What he feels for Aoba now is…less childish.

Laughter erupts from the table, Aoba burying his face in his hands to laugh, shoulders shaking.

 _I’m in love with him._ It’s the first time Koujaku lets himself think it.

 _But as a friend,_ his brain insists, _as a brother. Not that way you love a woman._ But he imagines running fingers through Aoba’s hair, smelling it, burying his face in his neck, hearing his voice murmur his name, and decides he doesn’t have the energy to lie, even inside his own head.

He seethes at the unfairness of it all, drinks too much, and yells at a bunch of his team members for no reason. The next morning he wakes up in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar girl, hangover pounding through every inch of his body. His tattoos burn against the dirty sheets.

 

“Koujaku.”

Soft morning light brushes at his closed eyelids as the curtains are drawn back. He comes slowly awake, senses reaching him in stages—the weekend traffic down on the street, the smell of coffee, the delicious aches in his muscles, souvenirs of a particularly gratifying night.

“ _Kouuujaku!”_

 _"_ Mmm? Some…something wrong?”

"Hah. No. Just that you’re sleeping through breakfast.”

Koujaku opens his eyes to find Aoba standing beside the futon, wearing an apron with a spatula sticking out of the pocket. His hair has only recently gotten long enough to put up in a tiny ponytail, and it’s so cute that Koujaku can barely stand it.

“Good morning,” he says blearily, glancing at the clock. Nearly ten. Aoba almost never wakes up before he does. “Guess you really tired me out.”

Aoba snorts and heads back out to the kitchen. Smiling, Koujaku pulls a robe on and goes to splash water on his face to wake himself up a little. Red marks stand out on his neck, some fresh, others fading to shadows. They are his favorite scars by far.

Out in the kitchen, Aoba is standing at the stove, frying something that smells amazing. When he comes in, Ren looks up from where he’s curled up on the windowsill. “Happy birthday, Koujaku,” he says seriously.

 Beni hops onto Ren’s head. “Yeah, boss! Happy birthday!”

Koujaku grins and pours himself coffee. “Thanks, guys.”

“Your gift is on the table,” Aoba throws a brief, wandering glance over his shoulder. “I didn’t know what to get you, and you didn’t ask for anything, so don’t be mad if you don’t like it—.”

Koujaku hugs him from behind and kisses his neck. “That’s okay. I already have everything I want.”

Aoba groans. Koujaku pulls him away from the stove and spins him around. “Hey, it’s gonna burn if you don’t let me—.”

"Shh, it’s my birthday.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

The day is already humid, and Koujaku can feel his hair sticking to the back of his neck. Aoba’s skin is hot from the stove and the coffee. “It means I get to do whatever I want. It’s a rule.”

“I think you made that rule up,” Aoba says, but he doesn't resist when Koujaku pulls him into a slow, deep kiss. He makes soft sounds in his throat, relaxing against his chest, and Koujaku feels that warmth seeping through him. He wants to reach around Aoba to turn off the stove and then throw him across the kitchen table.

“If you really want to give me something nice, you could call in sick to work. Tell Haga-san I need you for very specific Birthday Purposes.”

“Hippo.” Aoba squirms out of his grasp and turns back to the stove to turn down the heat. “I already took the day off.”

Koujaku can barely remember the last birthday he’d had when he had not asked himself, _is this it—is this the last one?_ He had never planned on outliving his revenge, but Ryuuhou is dead and Koujaku is here. 

After breakfast he manages to coax Aoba into the shower, even gets him to let Koujaku shampoo his hair. Aoba washes his back, takes particular care when moving over the tattoos, kissing the clean skin the water leaves behind. Koujaku still tenses up and his breathing goes shallow, but it passes quickly with Aoba in his arms.

They don’t bother to get dressed, just go right back to bed. They ignore phone calls and drink their way through several bottles of wine. Aoba endures nearly an hour of Koujaku laying him down and kissing every inch of skin he can reach. He blushes, protests, and still comes so hard his back arches up off the bed.

The day is so decadent that Koujaku thinks there’s _no_ _way_ he won’t pay for it later. Feeling this good has got to unbalance his karma.

As the light turns watery at the end of the day, Aoba is spread out beneath him, hot and open, knuckles white as he grips the sheets and clenches his teeth.

“Don’t,” Koujaku whispers to him. “Don’t hold in your voice. Just this once. It’s my birthday.”

“That—ah! That excuse only w-works until midnight…”

“That’s okay.” Koujaku pauses for a moment, rests his forehead against Aoba’s shoulder, feels their hearts beating in the same place, at the same tempo. “There’ll be others.”

**Author's Note:**

> Autoeuphoric on tumblr!


End file.
